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I've come to software from the other direction. 1) In neuroscience there's an enormous lack of enthusiasm for software development, even if it makes large part
by cpcloud 12y ago
I've come to software from the other direction.
1) In neuroscience there's an enormous lack of enthusiasm for software development, even if it makes large parts of a workflow easier. If a poorly written, undocumented piece of code stuck in a file called temp123_final_final_no_really_final.m produces the same output as a higher quality piece of code, no one cares as long as it leads to a publication.
2) You don't need a degree in neuroscience to do neuroscience research, however you'll probably need to take a few basic neuroscience courses to get up to speed depending on what area you're interested in focusing on. It sounds like you're interested in theoretical neuroscience. For that you'll need to take lots of probability and statistics.
3) Make no mistake, your ability to write clean, well documented code will be massively under-appreciated by nearly everyone.
4) As far as division of labor goes, that usually depends on the lab size. The smaller the lab, the more you do. Even in some large labs you have people building software AND doing animal surgeries AND running experiments. There usually isn't a person dedicated to a specific type of labor.
5) To "fiddle" with the brain, you'd have to get into animal research as you can't really do that with people (yet?)
A lab worth checking out is the lab of Gyorgy Buszaki: http://www.buzsakilab.com/ http://www.buzsakilab.com/
- stinos 12y agoVery much this. Some comments: 1 and 3) I wouldnt really call it under-appreciated or lack of interest. Mostly researchers appreciate your clean code when they see it, they can even understand why your clean code is much better (after all, these are mostly intelligent people), but the there it ends. Sometimes they just don't really care enough to improve their own code, but most of the time they don't have time to do so. The pressure is high, so even if you explain them in depth how spending a lot of time now to make some reusable piece will result in much more time gained in the long end, well, they're gonna be all like 'yes, but if I fix it quickly now my paper can be submitted for conference X'. That is hard to deal with for me, seeing people do the wrong thing even though they know it is wrong. 5) There is fiddling with human brains, even remarkably similar to your typical animal research: insert a bunch of electrodes and start recording (afaik mainly for brain tumor patients: a part that gets removed anyway can as well server for some very interesting recordings right before the operation). Furtermore there's of course the more well-known the mind control stuff where electrodes are inserted, read out, and used to control robot arms and such.
- cpcloud 12y agoNice addendum!
- stinos 12y agoToo bad about the downvotes though :] Not sure what is wrong with shedding some extra light on a first-hand experience?
- danabramov 12y agoThank you and your parent for shedding light on some of the issues. It's very informative and not something people tell you upfront (or even recognize is there).